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Run and Gun: The 48 Film Fest – Films from ALL OVER

There’s never been a 48 hour film fest like this one. Well, maybe there has but nobody has informed me. Has there? Comment below, let me know. Anyways, I opened up like that because this is the self-proclaimed 1st ever cross country 48 hour film competition. That’s right, it took applicants from other provinces besides Vancouver bringing in all kinds of amazing talented cast and crew members. Within 48 hours 22 different crews submitted their work and it all got screened at one of the most common venues in Vancouver for viewing: The Rio Theatre. I was fashionably early, but there were quite a few people coming in and the event seemed pretty lively even with the low attendance rate. Shoutout to Joel McCarthy for making this happen, it’s time to get into what screened that night.

Phenomena – After some awkward dark screen and a lot of people randomly quipping, we got treated to the first film of the night, where a paranormal investigator and her best friend who serves churros come to an old barn to find some interesting space alien. This film was funny and weird.

Netmare – An elderly man tells his shipmates/captors a scary story about an ancient sea net that comes to life and leaves no survivors. Man, that one was disturbing. Now I have another reason to take no interest in fishing.

Menty B – According to the program guide, it’s about a woman who opens up a portal that takes her into a small town. To me, it looks like Lady Gaga stuck in a late 90’s to early 2000’s cartoon. Still pretty surreal and cool though.

Marsha’s Knitting Club – Some queer individuals make their own private community of misfits and shunned people. A heartwarming and short story, sometimes I wonder if there’s any misfit small groups for people with my interests. I may never know.

How to Spell Dad – A nice story about family. A woman becomes transgendered and their wife and kids have to come to terms with it, specifically using the term, Dad. I enjoyed this one. There was some good humour in it that made its content worthwhile.

Miss Fortune – The funny film about a woman who comes across fortune cookies that bring her luck further and further after it seems like her life started going downhill. This was one that EVERYONE enjoyed, with a little bit of a twist ending.

Camp Unfortunate – Continuing on with the theme of good and bad luck, was an animation about an anthropomorphic cat that goes to summer camp for a week. What happens? All kinds of emotions. It was neat, and maybe even a bit relatable. Whoa, flashbacks of childhood.

Rule of Nine – I’ve seen lots of talking objects over the years, and this is the first time in over a decade when I’ve seen talking plants. The houseplants have a new resident among them, and they all discuss the rule of nine, which is to decide which of the now ten will die. This was hilarious. Now if only somebody would do talking landmarks, that would be… interesting? Maybe not…

Stop Looking and Listen – An introvert has dedicated his life to finding an extremely Canadian phenomenon, the sasquatch. But after years of nothing, he finally feels it’s time to throw the fluffy brown towel in. Not much to it, but the ending picked things up and saved the story. Or maybe just made everyone uncomfortable.

The Better Forever – Two different guys have been bound and gagged with duct tape. What can they do? They’re ordered to fight each other Mortal Kombat style. Who wins? I can’t say anyone does, really. But I can say this film was crazy good. It had to be replayed later because the first third of it wasn’t shown during the first screening. Technical issues were a bit common last night.

Right around then were some announcements for the door prizes, followed by a 15 minute break. Let’s all go to the lobby to get ourselves some snacks. And maybe mingle with people we haven’t seen in a while. After that, it was on to MORE screenings.

Red Tape – An intern is given the task of bringing a mysterious package to her boss. What’s in it? Something he needs for ultimate power. Ooh, scary. This was a funny film. While the motion capture animation kind of creeped me out, I had a good time watching this.

Transversal – A woman gets caught in alternate worlds where she meets a young lady and an angry man. This was creepy to watch. At first I thought it was just about a woman having mental breakdowns. Amazing how it turned out being something else.

I, New God – It’s a woman as Mother Nature who encounters the spirits of Fear, Addiction, and Ambition. Strange stuff, but I enjoy these kinds of films with interesting fantastic visuals.

Breakthrough – A torture session which ends up being something else. I’ve talked about this before. But despite the subject matter, it didn’t trigger my PTSD too hard. You’re better off not knowing about that in particular.

Carrissima – Different people rent out a boat owned by a man and each person has their own story to share. Every story is nicely done and creative. Though I have to wonder how the man felt knowing just what kinds of people were renting his boat and doing questionable things within it.

Shit SpongeAnother film I’ve summarized via tweet before, it’s about a hotel manager who has to evict a celebrity who hasn’t bothered paying. Funny how some of us make connections sometimes.

Grey Area – A man consumes some edibles and waits for the side effects to kick in. Ha, I know the pain of waiting for something to get going. This was both funny and relatable.

Hedgehog Dilemma – Nothing to do with Sonic, but rather to do with how we can’t get together during COVID-19, much like two hedgehogs who can’t get together without somehow pricking each other. It was an interesting style of animation and art being used. Great stuff.

Rock Paper Soul – In this humorous short, a deceased man stuck in purgatory watches angels and demons duke it out in an extreme game of croquet. It reminds me of some illustration I drew in Elementary school. Anyways, it was bizarre but I enjoyed it and got some good chuckles out of it.

The Departed 2 – I haven’t seen the first one, so I have no idea what happened in it. But this is about an undercover Sgt. who deals with literal rats in the Boston State Police. I don’t know, it was all just too silly for me.

And that’s that. There was another prize draw, followed by a quick and informative Q&A that went super fast, followed by one last prize draw and finally an afterparty at The Dime which I couldn’t afford on my dime, and I had to get home to write this up anyway. But it was a great way to mingle with filmmakers and ask questions that weren’t answered at the Q&A of only 4 Q’s. But for an event, I’m glad I got to attend this and hope to attend even more in the future, maybe we’ll see what other people will come up with. There’s talk of the next event happening right across the street from my residence. I just might have to attend it.

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